I must also confess that i looked for a cracked version. The company i freelance for use your product and i think it looks great.

Currently though i cant really justify spending the money on the product but after reading your home page where you talk about how to get a free license i feel quite ashamed of trying to get it for free.

I plan to save up for this piece of software and pay for it as i think that your attitude to “do-gooders” and open source projects is very commendable.

I for one feel that if i make money from a product then i owe the creators a share of that money. This doesn’t extend to big software companies who i feel that big business can fund them (because they’re scared of getting caught) and ill help out the little guys

Personally, I’m somewhat easily annoyed, and if a trial program nagged me every 5 minutes, I’d be looking for another program, or a crack, after 5 minutes. 20 minutes, even 15, maybe, depending how long I’d be using the program, but 5, that gets really annoying really quick.

I’m a hacker myself, though I rarely use pirated software – much prefer open source. I hack Nintendo games for fun; the only time I’ve ever actually cracked a program was because I needed it NOW and even legitimately paying for it would take too long. However the mentality is pretty much the same for any of us. It’s insulting in a way to have a machine that is supposed to be under our control intentionally annoy us.

So when you make nag screens, the more annoying you make them, the more likely some hacker is going to be bothered or insulted enough to want to crack the program, just to shut it up, even if the trial was otherwise fully functional and convincing them to buy. And of course, hackers take pride in their work, and will want to share it, regardless of the morality behind it.

My personal suggestion is not to bother with nag screens and annoyances. Make the trial versions simply lack functionality that most people will want. If it’s something most people will use for an hour at a time, maybe have it quit (AND SAVE! And make sure they know it’s saved!) every half hour. Have a logo or watermark in the corner of the window. I also like the idea of releasing old versions for free, as that basically gives you a good trial right there: it works, but lacks some features and maybe has some bugs.

Simply, there are many ways to make the trial version an effective trial, without making it annoying. After all, for every one hacker that gets annoyed enough by the nags to crack it, how many non-hackers are annoyed enough to simply leave? I’d enjoy seeing stats on this, but I’m doubtful it makes more sales than it breaks, even before piracy is factored in.

- The amount you’re paying for the tool is less than the revenue you will get from people who are trying to steal the software by looking at the source code but who really want to use it and eventually give in and buy it.

- it doesn’t take much time to do it. It’s a one time button click to obfuscate. It’s not like you’re developing your own obfuscation app.

The idea is to make it harder for hackers, real hard for the wannabe hacker and still be easy to use for the casual user. You don’t want to leave the door completely open but close the door and welcome new visitors.

There’s always a sweet spot between the two. The problem is finding it.

http://tabbles-dev.blogspot.com/2010/01/again-on-piracy-very-smart-method-of.html

It’s about a smart way to creating looong serials and reading only a chunk at a time – so you have to worry *less* each time a new keygen is out. It’s particulary useful to Micro-ISVers.

It’s conceivable that more than a few of your would-be customers are tinkerers with personal projects (like myself). I can’t justify $80 for an app that I’ll use for a month, put away, come back to in a few months use for another month on another hobby project, and put away again.

Perhaps you would consider a single-seat non-commercial license in the future for all of us shoe-string developers that just want the satisfaction of owning the real-deal?

I invite you to our website and see how we are helping small to medium sized software companies to tackle the threat of piracy.
http://www.pmcleaner.com

We just started the operation on 1st october and will really love to hear your comments about us

Your 5 groups are great, but really I thik the sizes are wrong. Those proportions might be well in the US, but globally spreaking the pink one should represent 80%.

I live in Peru. I see the poor people slowly gaining access to computers, trying to bring home some progress. They buy used stuff, refurbished stuff. They might spend $30? $50? All to give their families access to the old PC that you thrashed 3 years ago. (here’s a tecnological problem: the base is maybe to old for your software).

But then it is Mr. Gates turn and he wants to charge $300 every couple of years for the OS… In my humble opinion, there’s where all this piracy game begins.

At Lima’s markets you can buy a DVD full of cracked software for $3. For 90% of the market it is just impossible to go the honest way. Want to pay .99 per song in iTunes? You can’t do it in Perú. iTunes won’t work here: the industry wants you to pay $18 for a full CD or nothing, and nothing is what they are getting.

I run a small shop. Adobe wants me to pay $1400 every 2 years for a new Creative Suite. $1400?! That’s 1 year salary for lots of people here!

I think you should create something on the iTunes side, to at least to get a buck of each of us. It might sound you to little for your work, but it is a sincere effort fron this end, and most impotant… we are thousands of millions on this side of the planet.

I also think older versions should be 100% free. There’s a premium version that can afford to stay on the front line. Cool. But if you guys officially liberate the old versions, you might get some pleasant suprises.